Music And
Drawing Are Not Much Cultivated In The Higher Branches; And Though Many
Speak The Modern Languages With Fluency, Natural Philosophy And
Arithmetic, Which Strengthen The Mental Powers, Are Rather Neglected.
Yet
who has ever missed the higher education which English ladies receive,
while in the society of the lively, attractive ladies of New York?
Of
course there are exceptions, where active and superior minds become highly
cultivated by their own persevering exertions; but the aids offered by
ladies' schools are comparatively insignificant.
The ladies in the United States appeared to me to be extremely domestic.
However fond they may be of admiration as girls, after their early
marriages they become dutiful wives, and affectionate, devoted mothers.
And in a country where there are few faithful attached servants, far more
devolves upon the mother than English ladies have any idea of. Those
amusements which would withdraw her from home must be abandoned; however
fond she may be of travelling, she must abide in the nursery; and all
those little attentions which in England are turned over to the nurse must
be performed by herself, or under her superintending eye. She must be the
nurse of her children alike by day and by night, in sickness and in
health; and with the attention which American ladies pay to their
husbands, their married life is by no means an idle one. Under these
circumstances, the early fading of their bloom is not to be wondered at,
and I cannot but admire the manner in which many of them cheerfully
conform to years of anxiety and comparative seclusion, after the homage
and gaiety which seemed their natural atmosphere in their early youth.
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